Instead, you get...this. The real challenge was keeping everyone in character up to the punchline. Heck, it's almost a fair-play mystery, at least if your sense of humor is as lame as mine.
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The wolf-tracks we had been following ended at the cobbled surface of the inn-yard. The Gnarled Oak fancied itself a hostelry of some style, despite serving a village of under five hundred souls, and presented its patrons with a higher grade of construction, but it had thwarted our pursuit. Stone did not take the impress of animal feet.
"The tracks don't start up on the far side, Mr. Ray," said Constable Bailey. An experienced huntsman, his eyes were much better than mine, perhaps even than my friend Alanik Ray's when it came to tracking sign.
"Indeed," the elven detective replied. "Then there is only one conclusion to be drawn. Is that not so, Sedgewick?"
I shook my head.
"I'm afraid I don't follow," I said apologetically.
"If it ran into the inn-yard but not out, it went into the inn. Judging by the lack of hysterical screaming, I would further suggest that it reassumed human form before doing so."
"That's no good," Bailey grunted. "Fighting a werewolf's no picnic, especially indoors, and with a crowd of innocent folk on hand it could get ugly in a hurry."
"I concur. The only effective strategy would be to strike instantly and fatally."
"But, Ray," I felt compelled to interject, "we have no idea of what the werewolf looks like, or indeed if it is male or female. Yet it certainly knows us on sight from our previous encounters. All the advantage will be its. It could launch a sneak-attack, take a hostage, attempt to flee, all simply from our inability to confine our attention to a single person among those present."
"Those are all excellent points, Sedgewick, and yet I am afraid we must take the risk. This creature cannot be permitted to play any more of its macabre jokes."
I could not argue with him. To my admittedly limited knowledge a werebeast was a bloodthirsty fiend interested only in tearing apart prey, but this one displayed a sense of perverted humor. It played tricks such as leaving a child's Jack-in-the-box for investigators to find, with the child's head in place of the Jack. A half-dozen equally bloody and sadistic tricks had been played on the people of Thistleford, the reason they had sent to Mordentshire for Ray's expert help.
"If we could ask questions about who came in with whom and when, we might be able to identify the werewolf, but under the circumstances that would only provoke a fight. Simply put, we must identify it in the first moments upon entry."
"Nice trick--if you can do it," grunted Bailey.
"Indeed," Ray agreed, "I do not hold out much hope that I can, but we must make the attempt. We have it cornered, after all, and cannot afford to miss the opportunity."
We ascended the short flight of steps and entered the tavern, a small bell above the door ringing with what seemed to me an ironic cheeriness to announce our presence. Inside, we found the Gnarled Oak to be a typical specimen of Mordentish inndom, with a large common room; a massive hearth to one side in which a steaming cookpot hung; gray, weathered wooden floors; a few small, round tables and a bar along one side. The bartender was a burly man with gray mutton-chop sideburns running along his jowls while the serving maid was moderately pretty in black skirt, white blouse and apron.
This was the setting, in which four customers sat, four possible suspects. Two people sat at separate tables, a woman in a high-necked red velvet dress and a man with a sandy moustache and beard wearing expensive blue silk. At the bar were two more men, one with dark hair, a gray cloak and fleece vest, and a blond fellow with rakish features and fancily embroidered clothes better suited to a Dementlieuse fop.
"Him," Ray said almost before I'd finished taking stock of those present. He gestured towards the cloaked man at the bar. There were no protests, no questions; the man simply launched himself at us. His speed, though, was astonishing. What was worse, I could see his features altering even as he leapt, his jaw twisting and extending into a furred muzzle, his hands becoming lethal claws. I fumbled for my pistol, realizing as I did that I was seconds too late.
Suddenly, though, the detonation of a firearm echoed in my ears. The silver ball from Bailey's gun crashed into the monster's chest and it reeled away with a strangled yelp, cannoning into two of the barstools before falling still. I gave a deep sigh of relief.
"Thank you, Constable," I said from the bottom of my heart.
"Yes, that was excellent marksmanship," Ray agreed. "This night's work will run soundly to your credit."
"Couldn't have done it without you," Bailey shrugged the praise off. "If I hadn't reached for my gun the instant you spoke, he'd have had my throat out. Guess it was worth it, asking you up to help."
"But how did you know, Ray?" I asked. "I saw nothing to set him apart especially from the others."
"Of course you did. Your eye for detail is unfailing. It is only that you do not reason from your observations. Look at the body. See how he is dressed? Woolen trews and cloak, and that fleece vest? When you consider our quarry's morbid sense of humor, who else could he have been but the 'wolf in sheep's clothing'?"
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(If for some reason you have comments, just feel free to add 'em here; no reason to open a separate thread for a gag!)
